


IWSC Season Three Compilation

by MournfulSeverity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MournfulSeverity/pseuds/MournfulSeverity
Summary: One shot story collection for the International Wizarding School Championship, season three.
Kudos: 1





	IWSC Season Three Compilation

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Everything, unfortunately, belongs to JKR.
> 
> Each chapter in this collection will be a story for season three of the International Wizarding school championship, season three.

**Title: Neville's Sacrifice**

**Summary: It's the day before Neville begins his seventh year at Hogwarts and Lord Voldemort feels closer and more dangerous than ever before, the only problem is that Neville doesn't feel ready to face him.**

**Rating: K**

**Characters: Neville**

**IWSC required info is found at the bottom of the story.**

* * *

A change had come over him that summer that Neville couldn't quite place. He wasn't sure when it had come only that in those months between the ending of sixth year and the beginning of seventh, something new had settled between his bones. He didn't like it.

Neville felt larger. He was taller, broader, and even his robes fit smaller on his frame, the hem now shorter than it had been before. He felt uncomfortable in his skin, unready to face a world that was changing alongside him. There was a constant ebb and flow of nausea that seemed to overwhelm him at the worst possible moments as stomach bile tried to squeeze around this new knot of nerves that had formed inside his stomach.

He just wanted to give up.

He wasn't a Gryffindor, not in the way his parents had been. Not in the way that Harry was and wasn't _he –_ Neville himself – nearly the boy who lived? So where was this courage the tattered hat said he had? This bravery and daring nerve? He didn't have it in him.

Neville had lived his life beneath a heavy cloud of other people's expectations, of barely scraping by, of not doing enough, not _being_ enough. His own family had thought him a squib, had nearly drowned him as a result.

Even when he'd been carted off to Hogwarts, finally given the acclaim that he was, as a matter of fact, a wizard, it was only just barely. It had been six years of failures. Of taunting teachers and bothersome bullies.

It was those six years of continuous catastrophes that led him to the attic of his grandmother's home and one of the many dusty trunks that sat inside it.

Neville pulled the attic stairs up after himself, shuttering himself inside with a muffled thump. He pulled the chain that dangled from the wood beams above him and the light sputtered to life, cascading across the boxes holding a life he should have known. Cardboard and leather containing the memories of parents he'd never gotten to experience.

He hadn't been up here often in his life, it was much too painful to consider all that he had lost and everything that could have been, but now, those same fears loomed on the horizon once more as the threat of Voldemort grew more tangible. The pain he felt inside his chest as he knelt on the floor seemed easier to deal with than this thought.

His parents had fought Voldemort once, had sacrificed _everything_ to join the Order, and paid with their sanity. Maybe, now...it had to be his turn.

He flipped the golden latch on the trunk that sat in front of him, coughing on the layer of dust that was dispelled. The hinges gave a squeal of protest as he lifted the lid.

Everything inside was orderly and Neville wondered when the last time anyone had looked at his mother's things had been. For him, it felt like years. And it probably was.

His fingers brushed gently over each object, yellowed letters, and old bits of parchment, school books from her time at Hogwarts, various knick knacks that he knew must have been special, but couldn't have guessed the meaning of. He shifted aside some of the Gryffindor memorabilia, a folded scarf, and the robe beneath it to find a piece of wood jutting out from under some of the other objects.

Neville gripped what appeared to be a handle and wiggled the item free. He stood, holding the piece of wood in his hand, looking at the rough, uneven edges that had long ago been made along its sides, carving what he assumed was once a crooked branch into something that resembled a sword. He peered at it with curiosity, his fingers running along the sanded wood that had been meticulously carved. He pictured his Mum toiling away over this one summer between her own Hogwarts years, maybe even before she had gone to the school at all.

The uneven edges gave way to lack of skill, to a child carving through excitement. He wondered what kind of battles this sword had been imagined with, his Mum never knowing there was a real one lingering in her future.

He turned the sword over and found crude letters staring back at him. They were carved vertically down the blade, spelling out the name "Godric Gryffindor".

He felt the worry inside him swell, consuming him. It stretched beyond his being until he was sure it filled the room, forcing every molecule of oxygen from it. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He was frozen, suspended in a time where Lord Voldemort was moving ever closer, every second bringing the dark wizard back into his vicinity. Into all of theirs.

This wouldn't be the first time. He had put himself in Voldemort's path, but with Dumbledore gone and Snape as headmaster, his tentacles seemed to stretch farther, they seemed to reach into the castle with a much deadlier grip than before. And Neville was more than nervous this time. He was bloody terrified.

He was not his mother. He had not fashioned a makeshift sword. He had not acted out battles. He had taken defense classes, yes, had attempted to better his own magical ability, but as far as joining the actual Order, becoming an Auror...he was not as brave as his parents. He would never live up to the legacy that they left behind. He was not the boy who lived, but he was the boy who didn't go insane, and that title was heavy enough to carry. He was ashamed.

With a fitful search for breath in a room that still seemed stuffy and oxygen-free, he tossed the sword haphazardly back into the truck, dislodging some of the organized stacks. The meticulous piles slid sideways, books and papers falling in on each other, the thuds of spines and rustles of parchment shattering the silence that had previously encompassed him.

With a shaking breath, he relaxed backwards on his heels. He gripped the trunk tightly, his knuckles whitening. How could he do this? How could he go back to Hogwarts?

He would board the express tomorrow as someone he had never been before. It was likely, even, that he wasn't alone in this venture and he would return on a train full of other changed students.

His headmaster would be a man he not only despised, but that was one of his greatest fears. Neville could only imagine the kind of staff Snape would bring into the school...the monsters he would surround himself with. There would be more than Voldemort to fear this year.

And there were _children_ inside the castle walls. He was seventeen, nearly a man...his grip loosened, his gaze falling to the contents of the trunk once more. _Nearly a man_. His fingers dug through the papers, searching for the makeshift sword of Gryffindor once more. In the process, his eyes darted across the penmanship of his mother, long ago smeared words from her quill, decades-old sentiments now forgotten.

He gripped the wooden hilt, pulling it out alongside a paper caught in his grip. He released it, letting it flutter to his lap, and stared back at the black ink. _The difference between a weed and a flower is judgment,_ he read to himself. His Mum had been a flower, of that there was no doubt. She had been so brave. She had given up _everything._ She had sacrificed her entire life, for _him_ and left behind little more than gum wrappers...he was destined to grow in that same garden alongside her...didn't he want to be a flower too?

He swallowed. And how was this different, really, than when he'd traveled with Harry to the Ministry? To last year, even, when the Death Eaters had invaded? Lord Voldemort was always coming...he always would be. Dumbledore wouldn't change that.

He stretched the wooden sword up above him, the attic surroundings changing into a battlefield in his mind's eye. There was more than one way to give your life, his parents had shown him that. In just a day's time, there would be children wandering the castle halls again. Eleven… Twelve… Thirteen-year-olds. And he would be a seventh year. He would be among the oldest there. Maybe he didn't have to fight Voldemort himself, but didn't he at least have a duty to the kids beneath him? Maybe he'd never earn himself the _real_ sword of Godric Gryffindor, but this wooden one, constructed by his Mum's own hands was just as good.

And if maybe...maybe the world viewed him as a flower after all of this...maybe that would be enough. At least he would be playing a part in the war, guiding it to the end or lose himself trying, just as his parents had.

The sword dropped to his side limply and the nervousness that had lived inside his stomach these past three months seemed to dissipate, even if it was only slightly. Maybe he could do this after all.

* * *

**Story Title/Link: Neville's Sacrifice**

**School and Theme: Durmstrang, sacrifice**

**Special rule: Create a weapon**

**Mandatory Prompt: [Character] Neville Longbottom**

**Additional Prompt(s): [** **Emotion] Nervous**

**[Quote] "The difference between a weed and a flower is judgment."—Dakota Johnson**

**Year: 5**

**Word count: 1523**


End file.
